Nativity of Mary, the Mother of God

This is the highest, all-embracing benefit
that Christ has bestowed upon us.
This is the revelation of the mystery,
this is the emptying-out of the divine nature,
the union of God and man,
and the deification of the manhood that was assumed.
This radiant and manifest coming of God to men
most certainly needed a joyful prelude
to introduce the great gift of salvation to us.
The present festival —the nativity of the Theotokos—
is that prelude,
while the final act is the foreordained union
of the Word with flesh.
Today the Virgin is born, tended and formed,
and prepared for her role as Mother of God,
that God who is the universal King of all the ages!

from a discourse of St. Andrew of Crete
from today’s Office of Readings for 8 September

St. Eleutherius the Abbot

I have a very vague recollection of today’s saint, Eleutherius, from some travels in Italy. A friend posted this sketch of a 6th century monk. Just to situate him: St Benedict died in 547. Some recent theological discussion in the Communio Study Circle about angels and demons leads me think more deeply about persons like Eleutherius.

St. Eleutherius (d. 585 A.D.) was a monk living in Spoleto, Italy. Little is known of his early life. He became the Abbot of St. Mark’s Abbey and was well-known as a man of simplicity and penance. He also demonstrated the gift of miracles and exorcism, and raised a dead man to life. After he healed a boy from demonic possession and saw that the child was afterwards left unharmed, St. Eleutherius made a remark to this effect: “Since the child is among the servants of God, the devil dares not approach him.”

Then the boy, who came to live at St. Mark’s Abbey to be educated by the monks, became possessed again. St. Eleutherius repented of his vain and presumptuous remark, and the whole monastery underwent a penitential fast before the devil would leave the boy for the final time. St. Eleutherius was a friend of Pope St. Gregory the Great, the latter having called upon the saint to pray for him in his illness. St. Eleutherius died in Rome in 585 A.D. Today is his feast day.   (DG)

Discern differences

To begin to discern differences in one’s life a person must be attentive to what lies within, to what brings and supports peace and tranquility [stability of heart] or what produces and reinforces confusing, destructive behavior. This attentiveness means concretely taking time to listen to one’s inner life.

It presumes a discipline of being in or creating a quiet environment in which a person can begin to recognize what is happening internally. It presupposes that while any discernment process might necessarily include dialogue with others, it must include, above all, a dialogue with oneself-in relationship with God.

Silence and solitude can provide this conversation. Such attentive listening can lead to less illusions and self-delusions (signs of the devil according to St. Anthony of the Desert). It can also lead to greater knowledge of one’s true self, a self more grounded in truth, more capable of living in reality.

Edward Sellner, Finding the Monk Within

The Orthodox West

There are members of the Orthodox Church that use the Latin Mass as their Order of Worship instead of the Greek Liturgy. It is very interesting to consider that members of the Orthodox Church consider the Latin Mass, the spiritual patrimony of the historic Latin Western Church as part of their patrimony, too. In some ways the proponents look at the history and horizons of Orthodoxy as not merely being Greek or “Eastern.” Most of will say that to be Orthodox is to use the Greek forms. One needs to know that in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) and the Antiochian Orthodox Church have a growing membership using the Latin Mass.

Here is a brief video, “The Orthodox West,” which documents their perspective and work.

St Teresa of Calcutta

I was looking for something on St Teresa of Calcutta for today’s 1st anniversary of canonization (tomorrow is her liturgical memorial) and I found this quote that applies:  “Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.” – G.K. Chesterton

Blessed feast of St Teresa!

Martyrdom of St John the Baptist

head-of-st-john-the-baptist-1600-1650-cleveland-museum_of_artOur remembrance today of the Baptist’s martyrdom calls to mind that we are baptized not only with water but also in the fire of the Holy Spirit. Today, I keenly recall that we are in fact, unfit to untie the Lord’s sandals. That we need the Spirit to cry Ecce in front of the person of Jesus. What further does this killing of the cousin of the Lord teach us? What value does our memorial have in reality for us today?

Benedict XVI said, “celebrating the martyrdom of St John the Baptist reminds us too, Christians of this time, that with love for Christ, for his words and for the Truth, we cannot stoop to compromises. The Truth is Truth; there are no compromises. Christian life demands, so to speak the “martyrdom” of the daily fidelity to the Gospel, the courage, that is, to let Christ grow within us and let him be the One who guides our thoughts and actions” (August 29, 2012).

St Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy.

Aurelius Augustinus was born in 354 in Tagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras, Algeria) to a Christian mother and a pagan father, raised in Roman north Africa, educated in Carthage, and employed as a professor of rhetoric in Milan by 383. He followed the Manichaean religion in his student days, and was converted to Christianity by the preaching and example of Ambrose of Milan. He was baptized at Pascha in 387, and returned to north Africa and created a monastic foundation at Tagaste for himself and a group of friends. In 391 he was ordained a priest in Hippo Regius (now Annaba, in Algeria). He became a famous preacher (more than 350 preserved sermons are believed to be authentic), and was noted for combatting the Manichaean heresy.

In 396 he was made coadjutor bishop of Hippo (assistant with the right of succession on the death of the current bishop), and remained as bishop in Hippo until his death in 430. He left his monastery, but continued to lead a monastic life in the episcopal residence. He left a Rule (Regula in Latin) for his monastery that has led him to be designated the “patron saint of Regular Clergy,” that is, parish clergy who live by a monastic rule.

Augustine died on August 28, 430, during the siege of Hippo by the Vandals. He is said to have encouraged its citizens to resist the attacks, primarily on the grounds that the Vandals adhered to heretical Arian Christianity. (NS)

Blessed Guerric of Igny

Blessed Guerric of Igny (1070-80 – 1160) is a stellar example of someone who followed in the example of St Bernard of Clairvaux’s ministry of preaching. Abbot Guerric is remembered for his preaching (see the collections of sermons published by Cistercians Publications). He was skilled at the coalescing sacred Scripture and philosophy, taking biblical types and making the application to Christ and Christian discipleship. It is said that Guerric was the medieval preacher of “God’s grace in biblical imagery.”

The intellectual and spiritual formation of Guerric happened first in a cathedral setting as the master of the school, and then in the Clarivaux Abbey. He was in a short time elected the second abbot of the Cistercian community at Igny.

Brethren, it is the command of our gentle and peace-making Master that we should be at peace with one another. Yet before that he says: Have salt in yourselves. He knows well that peaceful gentleness nourishes vices unless the severity of zeal has first sprinkled them with the sharp taste of salt, just as mild weather causes meat to grow wormy unless the heat of salt has dried it out. Therefore be at peace with one another, but let it be a peace that is seasoned with the salt of wisdom; try to acquire gen­tleness, but let it be a gentleness filled with the warmth of faith. (Blessed Guerric of Igny, Sermo IV in festo S. Benedicti: PL 185,111-112).

The value of knowing Guerric of Igny is first as a Cistercian monastic father, but also as an eloquent preacher of Grace calling us into deeper communio with the Most Blessed Trinity.

St Bernard Tolomei

“God is love… and in the strength of that blessed love
All goods are obtained and everything is shaped by it,
And the man in his midst becomes God.”
~Bernardo Tolomei

On the Benedictine liturgical calendar, the commemoration today is for St. Bernard Tolomei (1272-1348), the Siena born monk who founded what is today is known as the Olivetan Benedictine Congregation. This monastic foundation follows the Holy Rule of St. Benedict and is under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Angels, hence their wearing of a white habit. One tradition of the Olivetans is to fast on Monday to honor the Archangel Michael (the secondary patron of the Congregation). Bernard is recalled as the “hero of penance and martyr of charity.”

St. Bernard Tolomei, teach us the meaning of true penance and charity.